


A Lonesome Dove

by fangasmic



Series: The Ballad of Cold Oak [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Multi, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangasmic/pseuds/fangasmic
Summary: None of them are blind to the fact a certain lonesome dove isn't quite lonesome anymore.





	1. Lial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gorned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorned/gifts).



Lial’s the first to notice the way his sister watches the Irish gambler that’s made himself a home at her tables.

They’ve always been close, he and Essie. She’s the nearest he’ll ever know to a mother, and he knows her face better than anyone, so the way her gaze shifts when she surveys her little kingdom from the balcony doesn’t escape his notice.

Always to the same table. Always to the same chair.

Lial dismisses her interest as curiosity, the newcomer a novelty. Essie’s always been eager to learn, a gift she passed on to Lial himself. It only makes sense that she’d want to study the gambler.

Her interest, however, doesn’t diminish. It only grows over time.

There’s a night, weeks on, when Lial thinks she might be watching the Irishman for a cheat, until his sister’s eyes catch the light. There’s a smile in them, one Lial had thought died in a church just a year before and feared he might never see again.

He lets it go and doesn’t say a word, in gratitude of the light returned to Essie’s eyes.

Lial does, however, stop the gambler on his way out an evening later.

“If there’s any sleight in those hands more than skill or luck will allow,” he warns, “let it go before you wear out your welcome.”

It wouldn’t do for the Irishman to cross the house rules and get himself evicted now. It wouldn’t do at all.


	2. Leth

Leth is grateful for the quiet of Sunday afternoons.

It's never proved lucrative to have _Miss E's_ open after Cold Oak's residents have received a fresh dose of the Word--not under Pastor Jim, God rest him, and even less so under his replacement--so he's released from his duties as barkeep and free to keep his own company on his family's ranch.

Leth likes to give the hands a day of rest too, since they work so hard during the week while he and his brothers are engaged in their sister's enterprise, so there are chores to attend to well into the afternoon.

Late on, he makes his way to the chicken coop to collect whatever eggs might have been lain since Essie's visit in the early hours of the morning.  The hens seem pleased to see him, clucking away as he makes his way to each.  Leth pauses to give the oldest, Gertie, who's past laying age and more of a pet than a producer, a rub under her chin on his way out.

A baker's dozen in the basket, Leth follows the path from the coop to the kitchen door.  Essie'll be hard at work on the weekly supper she makes for the four of them and their hands, and Leth bets the bounty he's collected will be appreciated, even if she does usher him out of the kitchen with a pointedly wielded wooden spoon, as she's wont to do.

He stops short at the door, bewildered by the sound drifting out from inside.

Essie hasn't sung in years, not even at church, where she steadfastly mouthed along with the hymns, yet the voice he hears is unmistakably hers.

" _On my life new hopes were dawning, and those hopes have lived and grown_ ," Leth hears.  " _And t'was from Aunt Dinah's quilting party, I was seeing Nellie home_."

Though he can't remember exactly when he heard her sing last, Leth knows that it was before the wedding-that-wasn't.  It's such a marked change, a departure from the quiet that had settled over them all in the years since, that he's not quite sure what to do.

He wracks his brain for what's changed, what might have lifted the melancholy from Essie's shoulders, but can't.  Life's carried on as always, the week spent working, and Sundays resting.  There's hardly a thing new at all, except for the gambler who'd arrived near four weeks before and seemed likely to stay.

_The gambler._

Leth clears his throat and lets himself in, finding Essie at the stove stirring something that smells awfully good.

She looks back at him over her shoulder, a smile fading from her face.  "Muddy boots outside," she says.  "I've only just cleaned this floor."

He edges back on the rug she's put down before the door and holds out the basket.  "The hens have been busy today," he replies.

Essie sets the spoon aside to collect the basket from him, quietly counting the eggs.  "My, have they."

"Everything all right here?" Leth asks, unsure how to broach his suspicions without calling the dark cloud back over her head.

Tsking, Essie waves him away.  "I've got everything well in hand."

Leth goes, still wondering.

He keeps a close eye on her the next evening, when the ruckus is in full swing.  The piano player's in fine form and the air is full of laughter, thirsty patrons keeping Leth busy enough that he almost misses the way his sister sweeps past the new gambler's table, just behind him.

It's a subtle thing, masterfully done, and it looks like she's watching his hands and cuffs for cards, except that she pauses for a moment, fingers on the back of his chair before moving on.

Leth might have missed it, if he weren't looking, or if he'd looked away after.  Essie looks... _alive_.  There's colour in her face and a shine to her eyes, more pep in her step than any of them are used to.

When the gambler--Patrick, if Leth recalls--makes his way to the bar for a drink, courtesy of his winnings, Leth sternly holds Patrick's eye as he pours.

Essie might feel the flush of it now, but Leth remembers the pain that follows, and he'll be damned if he sits in silence as that plays out again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NRFTW Western AU, with all credit for the characters going to the writers who first brought them to life. I'm just playing in the sandbox, friends. The song featured herein is 'Seeing Nellie Home' aka 'Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party'.

**Author's Note:**

> Revising the NRFTW Western AU. <3


End file.
